


Lambs In a Snowstorm

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Sprites, Animal Traits, Animal Transformation, Blood and Injury, Fantasy, Getting Together, Humor, Mild Gore, Multi, Nature Magic, Polyamory, Romance, Skinny Dipping, Time Skips, shape shifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2018-10-26 06:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10781736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: The first time Arin met Dan, he was ten and saved the sprite's life.The second time he saw him, he was eighteen, and received a life-changing token of esteem.The third time he was thirty, and the planet's very fate hung in the balance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first real story I've written in my spring sprite au! Please click the collection link to read other stories in the universe, and if you'd like to contribute feel free to add to it!

The first time Arin wandered into the forest, he was ten years old, and had managed to separate himself from his grandparents during a long hike. 

He walked along the tree line, trying to keep sight of the long stream that bisected this particular part of the forest. Always follow running water, his grandpa had advised him once. Arin obeyed even now, for hours, until he heard the soft cry of someone in trouble and followed the sound to the heart of a vine-laden thicket.

There, he saw a man dressed in a bright blue tunic and pants, clutching his leg as he groaned in pain, having stepped in and been caught in a bear trap. Arin gawked in horror at the sight, blood oozing down around his ankle.

The man’s kind eyes were fever-bright when they landed upon Arin. “Could you help me?” he asked, with an almost frantic eagerness, his hair wild around his face. Arin emerged from the brush, nodding, doing just as the man asked; there was something about him, something delicate and trusting, that made him act. Arin had to press down on the thick metal tongue of the trap before it opened with a metalic squeal.

“Thank you,” panted the man, pulling his leg free from the teeth and rubbing frantically at his bleeding flesh. “Any favor you need, I shall bestow it upon you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Arin said, “you need to go to the…hospital?”

He stared, his jaw dropping, as the man rubbed his palms along the wound and it cauterized, scabbing over as abruptly as it started to bleed. “Oh, don’t worry about me, either – this isn’t the first trap I’ve stepped in.” He stood up and cracked his knees and back, wincing at the sound. “So, are you lost?”

Arin forced himself to close his mouth, nodding quickly. 

Dan grinned. “Humans are so cool,” he said, then pointed in the direction Arin had come from. “Just follow the river for a few more miles, man. If you keep going, you’ll get to a bridge, and that should take you back to the parking lot.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Please do!” he said, his big eyes getting somehow unfathomably bigger. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

Arin shrugged, walked back up the path. “Thank you, mister,” he said, walking unsteadily back the way he came. 

“Don’t thank me!! You’re very smart, I bet you would’ve figured it out all by yourself.” 

When Arin turned around to look one more time, it was to the sound of the tall man’s merry whistling, to the sight of him happily walking deeper into the woods, a long-legged deer loping up to stand beside him. 

When Arin staggered into the parking lot two hours later it was nearly dark, but the man was right – he’d gone right back to where he’d started by crossing the bridge.

His grandparents were far too happy to have him back to ask questions and later, as he was being checked up by doctors at the ER, all the adults around him convinced Arin that the man was a result of a fantasy he’d had due to dehydration.

And Arin – who was young, afraid, and relieved to be back in civilization - was apt to agree with them.

***

The second time he got lost in the woods, Arin was eighteen years old, a high school dropout, with greasy, long hair and the notion that camping alone in the middle of the woods somehow made a person a romantic figure, instead of slightly lost and unprepared to face the world.

He’d spent a week wandering the forest and had had a luckless time, chill winds threw branches constantly into his face, a bear ate several days worth of his rations, and he tripped over a rock that appeared abruptly out of nowhere into his path. His luck with trees, apparently, continued.

On a brief hike, he came upon the stream that had helped him discover civilization as a kid. It was just as peaceful as it had been when he was younger, and it looked just as refreshing as it had in his youth. He walked to it, bent and cupped his hand to sip a drink.

That was when he heard a soft, melodious humming, coming from further up the bank. He turned in the direction of the sound and was shocked by what he saw.

It was a man – a man who seemed to be roughly his age. A man with a nest of long, curly red-brown hair and brown eyes, who was floating in the shallow end of the stream, enjoying the early spring warmth. At his right hand was a small rabbit, who nuzzled his palm, his head pillowed against the side of a fawn, and in his hair a hundred spring flowers were tangled, bright and beautiful. 

The man was also stark naked.

“If you’re going to stare you should at least gimmie a compliment.” The statement was lazy, almost fond, as it spilled from the man’s lips.

Arin flushed. “I didn’t mean to,” he said, while still trying to discern the man’s attributes through the screen of the babbling brook. 

“That’s all right,” he said, smiling sweetly. He patted the rabbit on its head, kissing its nose before sitting up. “Would you like to join me?”

“Oh! Um…you don’t mind!” Was he really this horny?

Apparently so. The man grinned. “D’nope! After like, a couple of hundred thousand years I barely believe in pants.”

Arin blinked. It suddenly struck him right between the eyes, the familiarity of the man’s face, his jolly countenance – all of them reminded him of the good natured man whom he’d rescued from the bear trap at ten years old. “Who are you?” Arin wondered.

The man shrugged his milk white shoulders. “Just a dude,” he said peacefully. “Most of the time,” he amended. “If you need to stay you can. As long as you like! I love it when humans visit – as long as they’re totally careful with what they touch.” He gave the rabbit another gentle scritch.

Arin felt dizzy – from the nearness of this man, from the strangeness of the day – even the fact that he’d undereaten to stretch out his rations. “I…think I’m going home.”

“If that’s what you want – I promise I’ll try to make sure you get there safely.” The man gently plucked one of the flowers from his hair, and tossed it toward Arin – it fluttered into the water and drifted toward his cupped hands. “To remember me by,” he said, sinking under the waves and stroking through the currents, smoothly and easily.

As Arin turned and walked up the path to the tune of his whistling, he could’ve sworn he saw gills sprouting on the sides of that man’s neck.

When he got back to town, he did nothing but draw. And those drawings were mostly of a sylphlike man with long limbs surrounded by animals, his hair a blanket of spring flowers.

***

The winter was endless.

Arin didn’t know exactly why. All he knew was that there was so much snow, blanketing everything, covering and sticking to the paths, making travel by car impossible, freezing pipes and making people incredibly disagreeable. 

He was drawn to the forest for an answer, for a solution, when May approached with no change in the weather. Somehow, in some way, he knew it had to be that man. The man he’d been drawing, the man whose face helped him pay the rent.

The man who gave him a spring marigold that never, ever wilted and faded, not in the last fifteen years of his life.

Arin didn’t know why he came to the forest in particular - what if the answer wasn't with this man or on the surface? - but at least he was prepared this time, warmly dressed, with heavy hiking boots. When he stopped at the brook to fill his canteen, he noticed a fawn watching him with curious eyes.

When he approached it, it bolted toward the woods, and he gave chase.

This time, whatever the forest threw at him he was ready for it. The branches barely scratched him, and the rocks barely tripped his toes. To his surprise, the fawn seemed to be running slowly enough to allow him to catch up, to let Arin follow all the way to the mouth of an enormous cave. 

He followed it inside, noticing how beautiful it was there – that everything sparkled like a sunny blue spring sky. And lying in the center, on a raised slab of what looked like pure glimmering sand, was the beautiful swimmer who had haunted his fantasies.

Arin glanced at the deer. “You led me to him on purpose, didn’t you?”

The deer flicked its ears in Arin’s direction. Arin stepped closer to the bier. The man’s skin was translucent, almost a powdery blue, and he lay beneath a web of Spanish moss that looked soft to the touch.

“What am I supposed to do? Kiss him?”

There was no sign from the deer, no map telling him what he should do. Arin was working on pure fairy-tale instinct. “Okay. I guess…this isn’t the creepiest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” The deer gave him a knowing look. “Hey, don’t sass me!” 

Arin hesitated. Just for a second more, no more than a heartbeat’s time. 

Then he slowly lowered himself toward Dan’s lips…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sprite awakens

Arin’s mouth was two inches from Dan’s when the other man’s eyes flew open, and he smacked his nose hard into Arin’s lips as he jackknifed into a sitting position.

“Woah,” the other man said. As Arin rubbed his sore lips, he noticed how far he dragged out that last ‘h’. The guy sounded like a space case, a hippie, and his grin all but confirmed Arin’s thought. 

The first being Dan noticed, though, wasn’t Arin, but the deer who had brought them together. “Roxie!” he sang, holding out his arms, and the deer bowed her head and let Dan hug her, pat a hand down her coat. “You got even bigger!” he exclaimed. 

The deer nudged his hand until Dan laughed and reached up toward his head, pulling down a small flower and offering it to the animal. “My little greed guts,” he sang happily.   
“Uh…” Arin offered up his hand. “Hi.”

“Oh, hello!” Dan said happily, continuing to feed the deer but turning his wide smile on Arin. “I thought someone was trying to kiss me, but I wasn’t really sure if I was dreaming it or not.”

“Do you just like…randomly dream about guys kissing you?” Arin asked awkwardly.

Dan yawned, nodding happily. “Don’t you?”

Arin flushed. His reply died away as he noticed what had been hidden beneath Dan, and beneath his bed of moss. Two wings unfurled, large, about the shape of a monarch butterfly’s, with the markings of a peacock.

As Dan lazily fluttered his wings and fed the fawn, Arin stood back, gawking. “So…why did you come wake me up? I’m guessing it’s spring out there, right?”

“It’s the middle of May.”

Dan leapt to his feet, pure horror in his expression. “Why did Brian let me sleep this long?” he asked, and rushed to the mouth of the cave. Arin caught up just in time to see the sprite gawking at the winter scene before him. “You’re sure it’s May?”

Arin nodded.

“Oh no,” Dan murmured. “This isn’t right at all!” He grabbed for a cloak of thick fur and donned it, whistling for the doe to follow him.

But Arin was right next to Dan in a heartbeat. “Can I come with you?”

“Well…” Dan gave him a crooked smile. “Sure. If you don’t mind danger.”

“Who me?! I laugh at danger!” A statement belied by his sudden yelp when the fur robe started to purr and yip. Dan made a soft soothing sound, scratching the head of a fox. The weasels and minks who made his covering all began to beg for attention, and Dan made fond, soothing sounds as he tried to comfort them. Arin realized the animals weren’t simply skins at all – but were alive, and chose to warm the body of this sprite.

“Sorry – my boys are getting a little mouthy.” Dan cooed softly to each one, petting them on their soft heads. 

“I don’t’ believe this is happening,” Arin mumbled.

“You’ve got a lot of surprises coming,” Dan grinned, and headed off into the forest, his wings flapping, with Arin running right behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin and Dan go in search of the source of the continued cold snap, and Arin learns something of Dan's nature.

The woods were peaceful, dark and silent. Almost eerily so. Arin shivered and wrapped his arms about himself, trying to ignore just how spooky the atmosphere was, the long bare branches tickling and scraping at his arms like a jealous lover. Dan made the pathway for them – meanderingly walking through the forest that surrounded them as if he had no purpose or goal.

Arin stayed behind him, watching as he bent to fuss over a dented stem or scoop up a squirrel and make sounds of comforting camaraderie toward them. With every step, Arin noticed that the branches were getting barer, the wind getting milder. 

“I wonder if Brian’s already asleep,” Dan mumbled. “He should have woken me up. It’s always his job to get me, and then we have tea…”

Arin cut in suddenly. “No offense, but why are we wandering around out here with our thumbs up our butts instead of fixing this?”

Dan frowned up at him. “But this is just as important,” he said. “These flowers need to be tended to if they’re going to grow up straight and tall.” 

“So you’re really into nature,” Arin mumbled. That was the understatement of the decade.

Dan grinned crookedly at his statement. “I guess you could say that,” he said. “For as long as I’ve lived this forest has been my responsibility.”

“What, for only thirty years?”

Dan’s eyes turned solemn as he stood, shaking his head. “No. Since the forest itself was born.”

“Okay,” Arin said, turning from Dan’s bent form to mumble to himself. “Winged nature forest dude is super old. I can handle this. My day is going fucking awesomely, I’ve gotta tell ya, not weird at all.”

Dan didn’t react much to his rambling – at the moment the flowers and animals were just as important to him as Arin’s predicament. “Well, there’s only a couple of someones who would be interested in keeping everything in the deep freeze,” Dan said. “Let me see if my guess is right.”

Dan reached out suddenly, and took Arin’s hand. He flushed the warmth flowing from the other man – this felt good and God, had it been so long since he’d been touched by somebody this gently. Dan smiled and bent his head, pecking the top of his head. Arin mindlessly canted his face toward the warmth of Dan’s cheek, eyes falling closed…

…And a sharp, icy wind cut between them. Arin shuddered. Dan turned in its direction. “I should’ve guessed. All right, girl – stay loose, I’ll go find you if you won’t come to me.”

“Wait…girl?!” Arin said. “What kind of girl causes mini wind storms?”

Dan shrugged. “When that girl’s a super weather machine she can do what she wants.” 

“Wait, what?!” But Dan was enthusiastically pulling Arin up alongside him.

“Come on,” Dan said gravely. “You don’t want to keep someone like Holly waiting.”

“Holly?” It seemed like such an innocent name for someone who could control the weather.

Arin was wrong about that innocuousness. And many, many other things…


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is Holly?

“So who is this Holly chick to you?”

Dan shrugged peacefully, scratching absent-mindedly at Tink’s head. “A very old friend. A sister and…very much not a sister,” he laughed at his own assessment. “We’ve been lovers for a millennia, and I knew her when the woods and stone themselves conjured her to life.”

Arin stopped moving. “Sooo the woods made her? Is that a thing around here?”

Dan shrugged. “Oh, it’s quite normal. I was made by a river and a mountain centuries ago.”

Arin’s eyes bugged out, and he may have muttered a “what the fuck” under his breath, but Dan brushed the reaction off entirely.”For as long as I’ve existed, she’s been there.”

“And…what is she to you, besides being your sister lover?” Arin wondered.

Dan shrugged. “Y’know how it is, right? When someone’s always been by your side? They know all of your flaws and all of your strengths, and they’re as close as your next breath?” His smile was dreamy as those words passed his lips.

“No,” Arin said flatly, his look dour.

Dan winced, reached back for his hand, and gently squeezed it. “You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t you?”

Arin said nothing, trudging beside Dan up the hill and toward their destination, snow shifting and shuffling underfoot as he moved. He pulled his hand quite firmly out of Dan’s grip, and Dan’s expression was…well, rather sad. “You have, haven’t you? Had a rotten time of it. You poor thing…” His voice warbled slightly with sympathy, going a bit pinker, a bit paler, eyes glimmering.

“Please don’t pity me,” Arin demanded. Dan paused, heaving a low sigh, and Arin could feel him watching him the entire way.

“All right.” Arin kept his mouth shut, but Dan continued on, “if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“I won’t,” he said. Arin remembered the little white blossom Dan had given him so many years ago – recalled that it still bloomed vividly in his desk draw. How could an immortal understand his loneliness when he could move the entire world with a flick of his fingertip? 

Dan’s features were drawn, and his brow furrowed as he turned away and walked up the steep footpath to the cave.

They passed through a final clearing, to a long, winding pathway that led endlessly upward to a large, sandblasted cave wreathed with laurel branches. Birds – spring birds, implausibly – tweeted loudly in the nearby wood. “That’s the way to her home,” Dan told Arin. “Stay here while I talk to her. Holly doesn’t take kindly to humans.”

“Why not?”

Dan winced. “That’s an even longer story,” he said, and bent to kiss Tink’s head. “Be good to Arin,” he ordered, then marched resolutely away from the both of them, eyes set on the grey sky ahead.

Arin frowned, but he didn’t make to follow Dan as he moved up the long pathway to the cave. Instead he stayed steadfastly with Tink, tentative but quiet, sitting right where Dan could find him easily upon his return.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan confronts Holly

Dan wandered carefully into the belly of the cave. This place was a second home to him by now; he knew the cool rocks and the soft sand as if it were his own home, on the opposite end of the forest. 

“Holly?” he called softly. She had to be here; he’d know if she was elsewhere. Their centuries old connection, fine-tuned and honed through time, was quite useful at a time like this.

Pushing deeper into the cool, dark interior of the cave, Dan found what he was searching for – a well-lit anteroom, filled with dark oaken furniture. At the center of it all was a woman with wintery white hair, sitting on a throne made of birch limbs, and flanked by two enormous owls.

And she was teary-eyed.

“Oh, Holly,” he whispered. Dan’s heart, as always, broke when he saw her. 

Her eyes took him in resolutely – though she adored him to her soul, Dan understood that for now she was lost in mourning. They needed no greeting. “Has it melted?”

He shook his head. She sighed. The subject changed without further warning.

“Six months,” she said.

“I know,” Dan said. “I miss him, too.”

Holly’s hand slipped limp from beneath her chin. “I would have thought…” But then she shook her head. “It isn’t the same with him gone, you know,” she said. “Everything’s quieter. Duller.”

“I know,” Dan said. “That’s why I’m glad we still have Jack. He breaks up the boredom.” A faint smile tipped her lips. “But Ross made his choice, Holly. That’s no reason to make the rest of us suffer…”

She frowned. “Do you think me so shallow?” she asked. 

Dan rocked back on his heels. “No,” he said. “But the weather…”

“It’s beyond me,” she said. “I’ve been trying to understand it. No matter what spell I cast, which words I say – it results in snow.” She shook her head. “I’ve not seen anything like it in a millennia.” 

“I know. And it’s bad enough for the humans to notice. It’s months past winter’s end,” he said. 

 

Her mouth tightened. “The boy in the forest; does he have something to do with it?”

Automatically, he put on his best smile. “What boy?”

She pointed a clawed fingertip in his direction. “I could feel him, Dan. The second you came, I could smell him on you.”

Abashed, he said, “he was the one who woke me up. The seasons never changed, Holly – and Brian never came. So they know. Something’s wrong…and the know.”

She ignored Arin – Arin who likely existed as an oblique concept at the moment instead of a living thing. “I know. And Brian’s been quite busy during this nightmare. You should find him by the old standing stones, if you want to question him.” Reluctantly, Holly added, “I wanted to keep you sleeping until I had a solution. You don’t react well to the cold, as you well know – I’m built for it. But you know how I feel about mortals,” she said.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “I know how you feel about mortals.”

She got up off of her throne and came to him, an arm wrapping around his neck. When she kissed his neck he felt the scratch of thorns there. Holly whispered in his ear, then, “get rid of him soon. Or I won’t be happy.”

Dan felt a chill run down his spine – something he felt whenever Holly asserted herself so fearlessly. But he gave a thin smile and nodded. He’d take care of them all. It was his sworn duty, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin meets Brian. For real this time.

When Arin came to, he was sitting somewhere warmer than he’d been before. Comfortable, almost cozy. He could smell a fire crackling nearby, and feel a warm, thick blanket covering him. His leather jacket was gone, and so was the shock that had caused him to faint.

Feeling more human, he opened his eyes and began to move.

He was in a cave. Said cave was darker than Dan’s had been; damper, too, though the scent of that couldn’t compete with the scents of fire and tea. Realizing that he stones themselves were glittering and almost pitch black, he looked toward the origin of the firelight, and saw two figures huddling by it. One was unmistakable by his flower-spangled hair, the other rather indistinct in his hooded, hunched appearance.

Dan looked in his direction and automatically moved. “Hey buddy. You doing better?”

“Yeah,” Arin said, rubbing at the sore spot where he’d struck his head against the ground in his fall. “I can’t even remember why I fainted…”

“Here’s your tea.” And suddenly beside Dan was a man with ashy skin and black eyes. 

The reason why he’d passed out became vivid. 

“Don’t be scared!” Dan encouraged. “That’s Brian. He takes care of the forest in the winter time, and all of the dead animals and plants.”

“Okay,” Arin squeaked out, then took a deep draught of the tea. It tasted spicy and sweet, and rolled into his belly, warming it thoroughly. “What’s in this tea.”

“Wormwood, and verbena,” said Dan. “it’s supposed to be calming to human bodies.”

Arin nodded his head. “Sounds legit.”

Dan beamed. Brian rolled his eyes. “So why the hell are you so late in getting up?” Brian asked. “I’ve been telling Holly for months it’s too damn cold but not even she knows what’s going on and it’s her job to take care of the damn weather.”

“I don’t know. It felt like it was still winter, so I stayed under,” Dan said. “why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because we both know how you react to the cold. Daniel, we’ve got to fix this,” Brian said. “Have you tried going to Ross?”

Dan gasped. “That would never work,” he said. “Holly would feel him here and she’d kill him. And I don’t know where Barry took him after…”

“Don’t tell the human everything,” Brian said, and he kissed Dan’s forehead before heading to the comfort of his plum-colored settee. “He’ll want a few surprises. It’s getting close to nightfall and you wouldn’t be able to find him anyway.”

“I think surprises don’t agree with him,” Dan said. But it was fond. His hand cupped Arin’s shoulder and he watched as Arin sipped the rest of the tea down.

“Try me,”:Arin said.

“Look up,” said Brian. 

He did. And oozing free of the walls was a woman’s shape, glittering, transparent, translucent, and slightly oily in appearance. She had big, bright eyes that blinked down at him as she slipped free to hover in the middle of the air, her dark grey wings flapping as she moved.

“Hey guys!” she said, in a chipper, bright voice. Eyeballing Arin, she asked, “what’s up with the human dude?”

He didn’t scream or faint this time. 

Maybe he really was starting to adapt to the situation.


	7. Chapter 7

“So you take care of the forest at night?” Arin asked. He stared at the little black-winged sprite in silence, watching her flit about the cave. Brian and Dan had settled into a comfortable pile of limbs on Brian’s pallet, and Arin felt a surprising shock of envy at the sight they made. 

“And the creatures that run around then,” she said. “Brian sometimes comes with me, but usually he sleeps while I work.”

Arin considered her words. “It’s so organized here. I thought everything would be anarchy. That’s what I think of when I think of nature – over the top chaos.”

“You haven’t met Jack yet,” Suzy said.

“Who’s Jack?”

“You’ll know him when you see him,” she said enigmatically. She hummed as she gathered up a blanket for him. “Here – I wove this for Dan for his winter slumber, but with those two snuggled up I’m sure there’ll be enough body heat for them both.”

“Wait…they’re lovers?” Arin felt enormously guilty for his attraction to Dan. 

“Brian and Dan have been lovers for ages – but so have Dan and Holly, and they’ve both been in love with Jack.”

“What kind of hippie commune are you guys running?” Arin asked.

“The best kind. The oldest In the world,” Suzy said. She tucked the blanket about his knees and then around his feet. “I know you were just out cold. But rest now. Dan will be a bouncing ball when he wakes. You can hear everything when you’re part of the earth,” she said, and floated to the furthest part of the wall. She giggled softly and disappeared into the terrain, leaving his jaw on the ground. 

Arin ran through the day’s events in his mind silently, again reflecting on the weirdness that had invaded his life. The breeze sang him to sleep,and the cozy atmosphere lulled him away to silence.

Sometime in the middle of the night, a long, warm arm wrapped itself around him, and he snuggled against it, sighing happily, knowing who it belonged to.


	8. Chapter 8

“Great, you killed the human.”

“He’s not dead, Brian! He’s just resting. You know humans need more sleep than we do.” Dan’s voice was practical, chipper, and quite close to Arin’s ear.

“I still think we should poke its eyeball,” Brian said. Arin winced as he felt something icy jab at his shoulder. “Hey you! Get up!”

“Brian!”

“What?”

Arin yawned dramatically and pretended to stretch, pushing Brian’s icy-cold hand away from his chest. “Ugh, good morning,” he mumbled.

“Morning Arin!” sang Dan. “Time to get up and try to go to Jack’s place!”

“You mean I’m going to meet Jack?” Arin raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t Suzy say last night he was sort of dangerous?”

“He is, but that’s what makes Jack fun,” Dan said. Then, with annoyingly chipper enthusiasm, he wildly tugged on Arin’s shoulder. “Come ooon! Brian’s made tea and scones and we’re going to have some apple sauce before going!”

“You seem way more chipper than you were a little while ago,” Arin said. He fluffed out his shiny, straight hair and sat up.

“I gave him some coffee.” Brian eyeballed Dan as he fluttered his wings. “And I’m starting to regret that choice.”

“I’m fine, Brian!” Dan said immediately. “Can’t you tell?”

Arin couldn’t. Dan’s eyes were pinballing back and forth in his skull, and he looked rather ‘out there’. But he ignored Dan’s wildness, enjoying the breakfast Brian had made, helping them both clean up before they set out again.

*** 

The territory that apparently belonged to Jack was set low, in a long bare valley. Dan was almost dancing as he ran ahead of Arin, calling Jack’s name, his tempest-tossed curls bouncing about his shoulders as he ran.

There was total silence.

“It’s possible that he’s not here,” Brian said, his voice flat.

“It’s Jack,” said Dan. “He’s everywhere.”

“Guys, that’s not making me…” Arin trailed off. The snowy branches above him began to blur and blend into a shape, until a large, white squirrel dropped out of the tree and right before his feet. 

The squirrel immediately shifted shapes again – into a thin, medium-sized man in a green cloak and tights. His sprightly eyes suggested mischief. “Top O’ The Morning!” he sang out. 

His voice sounded Irish? 

The sudden Arin squawked and tripped backward over a log, bumping the back of his head against the ground. While the world spun over his head, Dan bent over him and pulled his head into Dan’s lap. 

Arin thought to himself that he needed to get a spine and quit doing this.

Then Dan bent down and kissed Arin between the brows. “You’ll be okay.”

“I suppose you’ve got bad news about the weather?” Jack predicted, watching the scene at a comfortable distance.

Dan blinked. “How did you know?”

“I know how this forest works,” Jack said. “I know every branch we have, and how to break them.” He settled against the trunk. “I know Holly keeps saying it’s not her, and I don’t think it actually has her mark. No, this is something more serious.” He raised an eyebrow.”It’s something that’s wrong with the center of the place. Something’s wrong with the land – not something sour, but troubled.”

“I told you Jack knows everything,” Dan said proudly.

“But he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing,” Brian said dourly. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“Something,” Jack said. “But you should take me seriously. Aren’t I being serious?”

“Sure. You haven’t even glued Groucho glasses to your face,” said Brian.

“Tsk,” Jack said. “Is that any way to treat me?” Before Arin’s eyes, he shifted shapes again, into a lamb. “You’re making me feel sheepish.”

“Enough with the jokes!” Brian groaned. “Why don’t we go to the core?”

Dan stiffened. “Brian. Not even the most daring of us have been that far into the forest in centuries. It’s dangerous, especially for a human.”

“But it might be our only answer to the problem.” His eyes were penetrating as they took in Arin’s form. He offered Arin a hand up. “If you’re afraid, mortal, it’s best you back off now.”

And Arin was afraid. Terrified. His stomach was quivering, and his throat was clenching. But Dan’s big, hopeful eyes were staring at him. And when he was watching Arin like that, Arin felt he could do anything.

“I’m not afraid,” he said. “Show me the core. I’ll do what I can to help.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consulting the core of the forest, the entire gang finds out what's been prolonging the season for such a long time.

It turned out that the walk to the core was long and arduous as promised. The trees were beginning to look the same to Arin, covered as they were with thick snow, and even the rocks took on a strange shade of sameness. 

“The core is through the split rock,” Dan said. He placed a hand on Arin’s shoulder. “You must be careful,” he said. “There is magic everywhere.”

“I think I’m used to magic by now,” Arin said, following Dan through the tight pass, Brian right behind them and Tink loping ahead.

And…well, it was impossible to miss. A large, pulsing glow in the middle of the forest. Arin hung back, letting Dan and Brian approach it. Suzy materialized out of the ground, glistening, to stand beside them. Jack had taken the form of an owl and perched upon Dan’s shoulder.

Holly’s voice came from directly behind Arin. With grim determination, she approached the four of them.

The pulsing light grew so bright he could barely stand to look at it. Arin clung to the scruff of Tink’s neck. The light flared and obscured the world - pink, white and green.

When it receded the deer was licking his face. The four immortals had moved back from the core, their expressions grim as they separated once more. 

“We have to get him,” Dan said.

“But we can’t…” Holly said.

“We need to settle this, Holly,” Dan begged. “It’s the only way to bring summer back.”

“I vowed that I should never let him back!” Holly shouted.

“For the greater good,” he said.

“Damn you!” she shouted, but Dan had turned to Tink and whispered something into her ear. The little doe took off down the path they came. Arin watched her go and turned back toward Dan. “What was that?”

“The forest told us what it was missing. Or…who it was missing,” Dan said reluctantly. His eyes were on Holly’s face as he settled on the ground. 

“But what happens now?” Arin asked.

“Now,” he said. “We wait.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A turning point.

Arin had no idea how much time had passed. He was only aware of how cold he was. The wind had increased, whipping snow by him. His face felt stiff, his beard dotted with ice crystals, his lungs burning, aching. It was the world’s most painful living, dying agony. He couldn’t manage it.

And then, all of a sudden, it was like he was standing in an inferno. In the whipping wind he climbed to his feet. “I’m so hot!” Dan stared at him in confusion.

Dan was shouting at him from far away. “How can you be hot? It’s so cold!” 

“I can’t take it!” He started ripping at his hoodie.

“Dan!” Holly’s voice sounded…concerned? But how could she be concerned? Wasn’t she hot too? 

“ARIN!” Then suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet him, and Dan’s warm, thin body pressed strongly against his. Arin’s teeth began to chatter, and his body responded to the heat of Dan’s. What power he had, he concentrated on keeping them both warm.

“I’m going to…” Arin panted. “Going to…”

“Shh,” Dan whispered. He pulled Arin close to him, and pulled his fur robes open, gently enveloping Arin in his embrace. Just as he felt his most miserable, just as he was ready to give up the ghost, he saw someone running toward them on spindly legs.

It was Tink.

She bowed her head and crawled into Dan’s lap for comfort. “Hello, little girl,” he crooned, rubbing her downy head. “Did you do it?”

He was swiftly answered when a skinny form began to walk determinedly up the mountain. Dan went very still in Arin’s arms. He turned toward the presence, and Arin could see Holly, tense and watchful, holding onto the rock beside her. Even Brian seemed to lack words. 

“Ross…” Mumbled Dan. The man paused for a second, before pressing his hands to the stones.

Then there was a flash of bright light that filled the area, turning the snowy landscape warm. The snow began to rapidly melt, and the skies turned bright blue. Dan released Arin gently, and settled him back onto the ground. 

Summer had come. He could hear the birds tweeting, feel the heat pressing through his clothing. It was a miracle, if such alchemy could be called as much.

The center of this fury crossed his arms and sucked on his teeth. Ross looked back at the immortals sitting on the ground, giving him beleaguered stares. 

His response was simple. “So did you miss me?” he asked.


	11. Chapter 11

Holly was glaring at the man. Dan had tears in his eyes. Brian’s stare was stony.

Arin…was just plain confused. He had no idea where the guy had come from, but he was looking from face to familiar face as if he were a disgraced old friend. Judging from Dan’s reaction, that was perhaps true.

“We agreed that you’d never return,” said Holly.

“I know,” he said, “And I wouldn’t have but when a deer comes all the way to the city to drag you to the woods I thought that it’d be a pretty serious emergency.” He petted Tink’s head and the deer leaned into his hand.

“You said…” Thorns began to emerge from Holly’s skin, and thunder cracked on the horizon. Dan moved toward her – Brian leaned away. 

“Uh…can anyone help a poor human out and explain what the dilly o is?” Arin asked.

Dan managed to crack a smile. “Arin, this is Ross. He was our...." he trailed off, voice cracking a bit, "his job used to be to take care of any man-made structures in the forest….”

“…Until he chose to give up immortality to be with one of you.” Lightning flashed. The weather was seasonably warm, but Arin shivered at her tone – it was beginning to rain.

“I don’t want to see you again,” Holly said vehemently. “Ever!”

“Holly,” Dan begged.

“No!” she snapped. “You chose Barry; you don’t get to come begging back to me after doing that!”

Ross didn’t seem contrite for his choice – but he did seem contrite over Holly’s anger, which was a literal whirlpool of wind developing around her at this point. The thorns projecting from her body looked angry, sharp. Arin winced at the sight of them.

“There is a solution,” said Brian, interrupting them all. “We could try to hand off that power to someone else. Someone mortal, but someone even-handed. Someone who’s been bound to the forest for his whole life.” He turned, firmly toward Arin. “Would you?”

“What?” Arin asked. 

“Will you do it?” Dan asked Arin. “Will you take Ross’ place here for part of the year, and make sure the seasons stay balanced?”


	12. Chapter 12

Arin blinked at the request. It was so sudden, and came from such a true and yet desperate place that he didn’t know what to say at first. So instead he bit his bottom lip and tried to hide behind his bangs. There wasn’t anything that he could conjure in the moment to bring to life the confusion he had going on in his mind.

“Arin,” Dan said, “We really need an answer, quickly.”

“Um…” he flushed. “Do you really trust me that much? I mean, I’m just a human being.”

“Yeah, we do,” he said. “And…” Dan shrugged. “During the winter, you can live wherever you wish to. We just need you here to complete the turn of the seasons. And the forest…it loves you. It wants to keep you.”

Arin considered his options. “Would I be immortal?”

Dan shook his head. “Not until you pass away. Then…even then I can’t guarantee anything. Not even we have all of the power when it comes to that.”

Arin nodded. “I…Of course,” he said. “I’d be glad to help you any way I can.”

Dan approached him, wrapped his arms around his waist. “Thank you, darling,” he said sweetly. Then he kissed Arin’s neck, to his hot embarrassment. 

“This is all fine and sweet,” Brian said, “but if you’re done with your little display, I’d like to get to the business of hibernation. It’s bad enough that I’m going to be two months short of sleep, the two of you are only...” He yawned, “continuing to hold me up. The sight of all of these living things are giving me hives.”

Arin nodded. “I’ll be going home, then – at least for a little while. I can’t just disappear.”

“I understand. The forest might try to claim you often, though; but it knows you have your feet in two worlds at the same time.”

Out of the corner of Arin’s eyes he noted some movement – it was Holly, who was waiting on the pathway. Staring at Ross. Staring at Arin. The hostility in her face was clear. He felt like an invasive species, a choking carnivorous plant.

But Ross spoke up first. “Whelp! Guess I’ll be going now,” he said.

“Ross…”Arin said.

Ross shrugged. “It’s all right,” he said. “I made my choice years ago and…if I’m going to be honest with you? I’m not sorry I made it. As much anger as it’s caused and as hard as it is…” He glanced again at Holly. “…and even as many people as I miss. It’s worth it, to be with Barry.” 

“Well, that settles it,” Dan said. “I’ll have Tink escort you back to the mortal world again. Both of you,” he said.

Arin smiled, keeping his head down. He felt Dan’s gratitude, his affection – the developing possibility of his newborn love – In the gentle touch of Dan’s hand. But it really was time to go; until the fall, at least. If he could actually resist the siren call of the woods.

On their way down the hill, he brushed past Holly. Whatever words he wanted to say died at the back of his throat when she spoke to him.

“Don’t look so cocky. I’m only tolerating you,” she said flatly, “to keep this forest alive.”

With that she walked back to the path leading to her cave, leaving a trail of dying leaves behind her.


End file.
